It’s been a little while since I’ve felt I’ve had anything blog worthy to post.  Not sure if I do now but at least I feel like it. 

It’s been two and a half weeks since my surgery.  It went well.  The doctor said it looked like the damage to my knee was caused not by over use, but by falling on it.  …sigh..   He cleaned the frayed and broken cartilage and said I should be able to resume regular activities fairly soon.  I don’t know what fairly soon means, but whatever.  I have been told that deep squats and deep lunges are out of the picture for me.  Yay! 

I went home from the surgery kind of stunned.  My knee was HUGE and hurt really bad.  I was able to get around on the crutches pretty soon after the surgery, progressed to no crutches within a few days and was walking up and down the stairs without much help within a week.  I could kind of see where my knee cap was about a week and a half after surgery but it still looked puffy and weird.   In hindsight, I think I was contributing to the puffiness.  I didn’t rest or relax nearly as much as I should have.  Some of this was out of necessity, some from boredom.

Last week I was in a funk.  It is hot as fish grease here and I feel like I’ve been stuck in the house doing nothing forever.  I’ve set my clock every day to go on an early walk an every morning my knee hurts and I’ve decided it’s too soon.  After a couple of days, I couldn’t decide if it was REALLY too early or if I’m just chicken or lazy or something…  Do I really want to recover and get back to running.  Have I started doubting this running thing myself?  Am I using this surgery as an excuse to not work to reach my goal of running a marathon?  Hmmm…  I hope not.  I don’t think so.  No.

So here I am!  I’ve started physical therapy with the same guy that I was seeing before surgery.  I was wrong about him, too.  He’s not British.  He’s from New Zealand.  He still hates running and still doesn’t know why I even want to bother with it, but I’m okay with that.  My first session was encouraging.  He thinks that I’ve got a lot more strength in my leg than he thought I would have so soon after surgery and he seemed to think ‘recovery’ would be quick.  He was positive and upbeat and I left feeling the same way. 

I know I won’t be out running next week, but I might be out walking.  That is how I started running in the first place.  I have a (sort of) back up plan if it is just not physically possible to be ready for the December marathon.  There is another one in Louisiana that I could surely be ready for – and the weather will still be cool. 

So, as you are reading this, I am doing my leg lifts, quad exercises and stretching my knee.  I can’t keep feeling sorry for myself because I can’t run RIGHT NOW.  Thinking that way has not served me well.  I need to either work hard and do what I can do NOW to get myself ready or just quit.  My grandmother (the preacher’s wife) used to tell us to either ‘piss or get off the pot’.  I’m not getting off the pot.

I am gonna run a marathon.  🙂